WA miners buyout ‘in their interests’

WA Premier Mark McGowan wants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto to pay his cash-strapped government a multi-billion dollar lump sum in a buyout of their lease agreements and thinks it’s “in their interests” to do so but the big miners are resisting.

The idea would involve the two iron ore miners paying the Labor government a large one-off cash sum in exchange for removing the 25 cents a tonne production rental fee that has been set at that price since the 1960s.

The two mining giants and Mr McGowan rejected the same idea when the previous Barnett government proposed it before the March election.